
Ei33 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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I 111 II Mi VI » 

1 8 97 809 2 # 



SPEECH 



OF "THE 



HON. Bs F. HAL LETT 



AT THE 



DEMOCRATIC 'RATIFICATION MEETING 




WALTHAM, MASS., 



FRIDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 2, 1855. 



[published at the request of the democratic town committee.] 



PRINTED AT THE OFFICE OF THE BOSTON POST. 



K. 



SPEECH. 



'PHONOGRAPHIC REPORT BY MR. YERRINTON.] 



Mr Halle tt was loudly applauded as lie came 
upon the platform, and spoke as follows : — 

Me President and Fellow Citizens — When we 
are called upon to exercise that great prerogative 
that belongs only to American citizens, the right of 
free suffrage, we should well consider what are the 
questions that call for our deliberate action. That 
power which every man holds in this great country 
— the power by his own will of declaring, as one of 
the majority who exercises the like power, who shall 
be his rulers, who shall make the laws by which he 
is to abide ; — that great power, when you come to 
exercise it, is one with which no man should proceed 
to the ballot box without careful deliberation. New, 
gentlemen, we are upon the eve of a state election, 
merely ; and as you know it is the custom of politi- 
cal orators to say — "This coming election is the most 
important one ever had in the history of the world !" 
This, though not generally applicable to a state elec- 
tion, is essentially true, in one particular, of the elec- 
tion in Massachusetts ; because, although you are to 
choose only your state officers, you are taking the 
preliminary steps to that great division of the people 
in this country, which is to be made, North and South, 
throughout this Union, next year in the Presidential 
election. In that election, whatever may be the local 
names of factions, there will be but two parties; one, 
a party for the Constitution, the other, a party against 
the Constitution; one, a party for the Union, the 
other, a party for disunion ; one, a sectional party 
composed of a sectional portion of the North, the 
other, a party of the whole country. Now, on which 
side are you going to stand ? That is the issue. 

And why does this great national issue arise now ? 
Ordinarily we go into an election,— as we have for 
the last twenty-live years, — with the democratic party 
and the whig party as the main armies on both sides 
contending under their well-known flags; and then 
we knew where we were and what the results were 
likely to be. But in the next Presidential election 
we are to have a new organization, or rather disor- 
ganization, of parties. Some people, very wise in 
their own conceit, pretend to have found out that the 



old parties were corrupt, and must be broken up 
and that a new party must be formed, an incorrup' 
tible new party of which they were to be the incor' 
ruptible (?) leaders, and which was to be made up o* 
all anti-slavery men and native Americans taken 
from the old parties ? How they accomplished this 
we saw last winter in the State House ! But bad as 
the new parties both have been in practice and legis- 
lation, one good result, certainly, has flowed from 
their winowing out old parties. It has very much 
tended to purify the democratic party, and has re- 
lieved it from a great many men who were impatient, 
selfish, dissatisfied, while in our ranks, and were al- 
ways wanting to be something other than democrats. 
If there are any men of that description within your 
acquaintance, who have always been a disturbing 
element in the party, all I can say is, if they have 
gone over to the freesoil party, or the fusion party, 
or the know nothing party, just " let them slide .'" 
(Applause). And, moreover, if you know any man 
that you have fostered and warmed into political life 
on your hearths ; one you had taken from his un- 
friended boyhood, and brought up by your hands, car- 
ried in your arms, cherished in your bosoms, and 
trained up to manhood, and then, by your suffrages, 
placed him in offices of honor, profit and trust, 
and just when you supposed you had imbued him 
with democratic principles, and made him true to his 
party and true to his country, you find that man, 
after all your training, all your kindness, all your 
confidence, and after all the honors you' had heaped 
upon him, deserting first to the " secret order " of 
midnight cabals and then betraj'ing them and en- 
listing under the black flag of disunion, and there 
denouncing the democratic administration, sneering 
at the Constitution, and proclaiming that he is ready 
to " let the Union slide " — I say to you, see to it 
that you "slide" that man clean off from all con- 
nection with the democratic party now end forever ! 
(Loud applause).* 

* Hon. N. P. Bj.nks, of Waltham, formerly a democrat, in 
his speech in the republican contention in Maine, speaking of 
the preservation of the Union said— "lam willing, in a certain 
slate of circumstances, to l> t it slide .'" 



And I pray you, brother democrats, now, when we 
are once more getting to be n peaceable family, when 
we can get t< 

the Union, when we can talk of the fraternity of the 
Northern demi ad the Southern demo* 

one great brotherhood bound together for the good of 
the whole country in one bond of common union; — 
now that we can do that without the hypocrisy, the 
insinuatii ns, the backbiting, the pitiful side is ues of 
men coming in with their narrow prejudic 
tarianism ai dism, — now that we can do 

that, I say, let us shut the door and keep tho 
out! — never let them back into your confidence, to 
disturb our peace and betray our party 

Now, then, what are these issues thai s 
before the people ? It is said, suddenly, that there 
arc two awful terrors that are about to destroy the 
institutions of our country. One of these great ter- 
rors is, slavery; the other arises from the fori 
born citizens thai 

one would suppose, from the excitement that has 
taken place recently about them, were new t 
just discovered. You would suppose from the 
ments of these people that they have made a grand 
discovery. They tell you that you are to restrict 
yourselves to the narrow limits of two ideas, one of 
anti-slavery, another of hatred to foreign born, and 
that there you arc to stop, and have nothing to do 
for your countiy beyond them. Aud from t : 
in which these two propositions' are put forward as 
"the paramount issues,"' it woidd appear that these 
things — slavery and foreigners — had never before 
existed in this country. 

Y\ h that listens to these declaimers would suppose 
that this country, when it went into the battles of 
the revolution, was made up of foreign Lorn and na- 
tive born, and no man either knew or inq 
whence another came? Who would suppose that 
when the Union was formed most of the original 

institution of domestic slavery, a I 
not a word about it, except to agree to 
other*;: rights, and send back fugitives fj 
Who would suppose that this institution of slavery, 
existing as a fixed, domestic institution in one half 
the states of the confederacy, from that d; 
period (J seventy years, with the ni 
citizens increasing from that day to this, and with 
such an rritory, such a va 

of our country, thai you can dip one hand in tl 
lantic on the one side.and the other in tl 
the other side, and say, — Thi 
who would si fn m the cl 

new parties, that we had gone oninth 

e what we are, and yet I 
and slavery all the while exis 
such is the fact, ami where has been the 
the ruin of our country, from either of to. 

that one fact enough to teai 
clamor about tic rces of da; 

which we are told the whole North n 
ne, is utterly unfounded — got up. 
fabricated with some other end in view than tl 
of the country ? 

'j in: know nothing I 

I am' not going to .-peak at length this evening 



upon the question of foreign horn, but merely allude 
to it. A great many men say that we must make up 
a part}' exclusively against the influence of foreign 
born citizen: illy that we must 

"down with the jmpe, ,J who lives a great way off, — 
not exactly know where, for he has scarcely a 
! upon which to stand from day to day; and in- 
stead of exhorting its. i fathers did, 
against "the devil aud his works," they tell us that 
there is nothing now to lie feared but '-the pope and 
orks." (Laughter and cheers.) I suppose 
there are some very honest and sincere men and 
i who are terribly afraid of the pope, audi 
pity them very much. I cannot but commisserate 
titizens who are so woefully frightened at this 
"raw-head and bloody-bones."' (Laughter.) I am 
very sorry for them, and [ want them to pluck up 
coinage and get cured. If they are terrified at the 
a population amon i fear that the 
nd the Irishmen will murder or drive all the 
native Americans out of the country, I really pity 
them again, that they ed by 
such weak fears. I wan 

ore them that the dent ■ 1. other 

-fid or not in this , be suc- 

I in the United S they will \ I 

them. (Applause aud hisses, ) I tell you, my friends 
of the secret order, you may need that protection by 
and by, because, under I ive the only pow- 

er that enables you to hold your secret midnight 
lodges and to stand he; ight. (Loud 

. ) If it was not ratio power 

,;ives freedom to : 1 of stand- 

ing here to-night under I 

you are trying to destroy, of that Union you ai 
ing to dissever, you would have d) r you, 

and should you dare to \ ar public meeting 

and speak upon an; the first word or the first 

hiss that came from your he be followed 

by a file of soldiers carrying you off to some Castile. 
(Loud applause mingled with faint hisses.) That is 
what \ which you 

are trying to break down, by these futile attempts tc 
incite hatred of races, and bring up sectional issues, 
and form geographical p 

.1 that point, fellow citizens, the fi 
is no danger. We h at two 

millions of foreign born among . b they 

le our 

. and bring -■, 
the pa] deal 

industry. (AppL 

rica, which has D 

born, [ or five mti- 

if native boi.. . and I 

v. e can I 
- no found 
1 am not willing to give in m; 
nothing doctrine that hi 

! (Loud :. 
d applause.) Moreover, 1 believe thai 



ever it is necessary to flog anybody, to defend and 
protect this country, and especially if we should ever 
have occasion to flog England, which I trust we shall 
not, there are no men who would go into it with such 
a hearty shillalah relish as the Irishmen. (Applause.) 
They would stand by you to-day as they did at Bun- 
ker Hill, and at Yorktown, at New Orleans, at Mon- 
terey and Buena Vista ; as they did in every battle 
that has immortalized the fields that Americans have 
won. Let that pass. 

THE "ISM?" OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

It is a little deplorable that in the Commonwealth 
of Massachusetts, the most densely populated state, 
for its territory, of any in the Union; the state that 
has the most schools, the greatest number of churches, 
the highest degree of education, — it is amazing, 
amazing, that here, in this Commonwealth, two 
such absurdities as know nothingism and abolitionism 
should take deeper root than in any other part of 
this country ! Why is it ? Are religion and educa- 
tion adverse to good government ? Does religion and 
education tend to make men fanatics instead of peace- 
ful moral, citizens, nullificationists instead of unionists? 
I will not believe it. It is a perversion. Above all 
it is a perversion of the pulpit, in the first instance, to 
political purposes, and out of that has grown up this 
great, wide-spread evil. It has been fostered by the 
practice of sending missionaries in the guise of minis- 
ters, and anti-slavery lecturers, all over the Com- 
monwealth, who, instead of preaching the Bible 
preach politics, instead of preaching the Constitution 
preach disunion, instead of preaching brotherly love 
preach hatred of sections and races, hatred of foreign 
born, hatred between the North and the South, and 
stir up intolerance and all manner of uncharitable- 
ness among us. Let us banish these ideas and teach- 
ings, and come back to the doctrines of the fathers, 
to the Bible and the Constitution. 

Now, as regards this issue of hatred to foreign born 
ci tizens, I pass it over, with this single remark, that 
I can never eease to bear in mind this fact : — When 
a man boasts that he is a native born American citi- 
zen, and derides another man, who is not native 
born, but who has the same rights of citizenship as 
he has, — it seems to me that the adopted citizen may 
well say to the native born, "Why, sir, you are an 
American citizen by accident; you were born here 
and could not help it. I, sir, am an American citi- 
zen by choice; I came here when my will and my 
mind brought me here." And, as has been well 
said in other respects, the only difference between a 
full-grown American citizen born here, and the other 
citizen who has come here and been made a citizen, 
is that, so far as concerns this new world, one of them 
came into the world without any clothes on, and the 
other with his clothes on. (Laughter and loud ap- 
plause. ) Let us thank God that there is room enough 
here for both to work in and continue to clothe them- 
selves, and to be happy and prosperous. 

THE FUSION ISSUE — "THE AGGRESSIONS OF THE SLAVE 
POWER." 

But I want to touch more directly upon this ques- 
tion of anti-slavery — this fusion doctrine — which is 
now in the field as the very newest of the "new par- 



ties." Passing over this question of the terrible ag- 
gressions of the Catholics, which some very timid 
people are so frightened about, let us look at this 
other issue, — ' This great and paramount issue," as 
Mr Julius Rockwell calls it, — "The aggressions of 
the slave power." Can anybody tell me what that 
means ? Why, when Mr Senator Sumner gets up to 
address an audience, he asks — "Are you in favor of 
freedom or are you in favor of slavery ? ' ' Suppose 
you answer "yes," or "no," what does it amount 
to ? Suppose you answer we are all in favor of free- 
dom, — what then, Mr Sumner? "Why — why — I 
don't exactly know," says Mr Sumner, only he 
reads an advertisement for a runaway negro down 
south, and then goes off into some fine flourish of 
rhetoric and plenty of quotations from the classical 
dictionary. 

But let us follow him up with the practical ques- 
tion — "What are you going to do? Suppose you 
could combine all the North against the South are you 
going to dissolve the Union ?" "Oh, no," says Mr 
Sumner, "we are for the Union provided we can 
drive slavery out of it." "But suppose you can't 
drive it out of the states or out of the territories and 
keep the South in the Union , what then ? Will you 
f orce the South to stay in the Union and be ruled by 
negroes ? Will yon fight the South ?" "Yes," says 
Senator Wade, of Ohio, "That is just what we mean 
to do, — ' set the dogs on them.'' " That is his "fu- 
sion" remedy. The black republicans are to get an 
abolition president and an abolition congress if they 
can, and vote the South down ; and then if the Southern 
members retire from Congress and refuse to be bound 
by it, the abolition leaders are to "set the dogs on 
them!" Who are to be "the dogs?" Why, the 
farmers, the mechanics, the working men, the "know 
nothings," of Massachusetts and other abolition 
states, they are to be "the dogs" to carry on a civil 
war with the South for the benefit of Messrs Seward, 
Wade, Sumner, Wilson, and Company, to make them 
the great men of the North. (Cries of "No, no.") 
No, you will not do it; I know you will not do it; 
the North will never do it. 

I tell you, then, that this plausible question, "Are 
you for freedom or are you for slavery ? " is not the 
real issue. The real question is — "Are you for the 
Constitution or against it ? Are you for upholding 
the government of the United States or for anarchy, 
revolution and disunion ?" That is the question. If 
you are for the Constitution, then you are for the ex- 
istence of the Union under that Constitution just as it 
stands, with slavery existing, just as our fathers 
found it. Not as a national but as a State right in- 
stitution, with the principle inseparable from the 
right of self-government that grows out of it, viz : 
the rightof every political community to regulate that 
matter for themselves under the Constitution. That 
is the democratic doctrine to settle all these sectional 
and geographical differences, which by agitation are 
made so often to threaten the Union. 

There must be some point of sound conservatism 
touching the slavery question, upon which Union 
men North and South must agree to repose, or tLe 
two sections will finally irritate each other into dis 
unii n. Where shall we find it ? 



This new fusion or republican party, as they mis- 
call themselves, offer no remedy for the evils they 
complain of, except their insane idea of getting pos- 
session of the government and conquering the South ! 

The democratic party propose a clear and distinct 
settlement of all these sectional quarrels. It is "/Ac 
principle of non-intervention by Congress with sla- 
very in the states and in the territories." 

That is simply the fundamental doctrine of demo- 
cratic institutions, the right of self government, — a 
wonderful pacificator, if we will only apply it to the 
Union, the state, the territory, the town, the parish, 
the family, each in its proper sphere, each under its 
own proper Constitution. 

The zealots, and fanatics, and reformers who for 
twenty-five years have been casting about for a place 
to rest their lever on to move the world, have settled 
down upon rum and negroes. The whole statesman- 
ship of the country, they tell us, must now be fused 
and absorbed in that. If there were no alcohol there 
would be no vice; if there were no social distinction 
between negroes and white men there would be no 
slavery. Hence all this false legislation about tem- 
perance, and all this sectional clamor at the North 
about slavery in the South. Are they not both 
wrong ? There can be no moral reform effected by 
mere legislation, unless the legislation is just and 
based on sound constitutional principles. 

THE MAINE LAW ISSUE. 

Let this test the modern legislation on .Alcohol. 
Instead of following the sound principle of our fathers 
which was to regulate the evils that God Almighty 
had permitted to exist among them; — instead of re- 
cognizing in civil government the principle God has 
established in divine government that man is a free 
agent, and appealing to his reason; these modern 
lawgivers contend that the only way to make men 
virtuous is to destroy all temptations to vice — to pro- 
hibit and remove from use every good thing that can 
be abused to a bad use. 

Hence, in-tead of regulating the use of intoxicating 
drinks as our fathers did for two hundred years, they 
undertake to make all use of it for drink, a crime. 
But the killing inconsistency is that when they un- 
dertook to make it a crime, they made only one-half 
of it a crime, punishal.de with the house of correction, 
and left the other half as free from crime as drinking 
water. They make it a crime for one man to stand 
behind a counter and take sixpence for a glass of al- 
cohol and they leave it as free as the most virtuous 
act, for the other man to buy and drink and pay for 
it ! (Applause.) 

Now, that is making one half of an act a crime, 
and the other half not a crime. Do you not see 
that that is a false principle ? that you cannot declare 
that a crime which is commitled by two parties, and 
cannot be committed by one, and make it a crime in 
one and declare it no crime in the other ? Therefore 
you see why the foundation principle of this whole 
legislation tails; for they do not dare to come forward 
and say "Punish the man who buys as well as the 
man who sells." 

But why not, if selling is a crime ? Why, what 
would these law Umperance folks say if you should 



propose to make it a crime to sell a negro into sla- 
very and no crime to buy him ? If you should de- 
clare that the man who sells him should be punished, 
but the man who buys him left unmolested to do with 
him as he pleased ? Would they not scout the idea ? 
But do they not act upon this principle in regard to 
the liquor traffic ? The man who sells and never 
drinks, says this Maine law, shall be sent to the 
house of correction, though he never would sell un- 
less templed to do so by a buyer. But the man who 
buys and drinks and commits the ether half of the 
crime, he is only to be pitied and not to be punished 
at all ? 

That is false legislation, wrong in morals, wrong 
in government, and therefore it has failed. For 
twenty years the law temperance men have been at 
work drawing the strings tighter and tighter, until 
they had got the bow string up tight enough to 
strangle every dealer they could catch with a decan- 
ter on his shelf; and what has been the result ? Why 
the tension has been so high that the string has sud- 
denly snapped, and away has gone the Maine law. 
From Maine on the Atlantic side to California on the 
Pacific side the people are determined to sweep this 
false legislation into the sea, and now there is a re- 
action dangerous to the cause of temperance even in 
its beautiful and healthful moral aspect. Such is 
the end of false and bad legislation inflicted on a peo- 
ple who choose their own law-makers. 

ANTI-SLAVERY HAS INJURED THE ANTI-SLAVRET 
CAUSE. 

Next let us examine the other evil which the fusion 
reformers are proclaiming "paramount," the slavery 
question. That, too, is in pretty much the same hands 
and runs on the same wrong track with the other 
"isms" of law-temperance and know nothingism. 

The abolitionists, freesoilers, and anti-slavery men, 
of all shades, have been at work upon that matter 
fcr fifty years. The North began its aggressions upon 
the South from the day that Thomas Jefferson was 
elected President over John Adams; not for love of 
the slave, but because Jefferson was in a slave state, 
and the federal opponents of democracy of that day 
played upon the philanthropy of the North to get up 
a '^fusion" to put down the democracy of the South. 

The state of Masaschusetts was the most intensely 
federal state in the Union, and thus inheriting the 
old federal hate to Jefferson, Louisiana, and the ex- 
tension of territory, she is naturally now the most in- 
tensely abolition and Southern hating state in the 
Unit n. And what has been the result of her oper- 
ations against the Union based on this anti-slavery 
element ? Her legislature has always been meanly 
subservient to the dictation of a minority of political 
abolitionists. Whether in the hands of whigs, 
democrats, coalitionists or know nothings, any reso- 
lutions against slavery which a single abolition dem- 
agogue called for, were passed as a matter of course. 
It was thought safer to let the few demagogues have 
their way than to offend what the demagogues and 
pulpit politicians c tiled "the sentiment of Massachu- 
setts on slavery." Hence the demagogues and the 
canting pulpit politicians have had it all their own 
way, and reason has nut dared to stand up and com- 



bat ■error. Massachusetts has disgraced herself by 
sending volumes of anti-slavery resolutions to other 
states to insult them. We have had abolition preach- 
ing and anti-slavery lectures upon the "cause of free- 
dom" as they call it, meaning negro freedom, until 
now they tell us they have found the philosopher's 
stone to dissolve slavery and the Union together, and 
they are going to do it by "fusion." And here they 
are, after fifty years of a sectional quarrel, kept up by a 
noisy, hollow hearted faction in New England, not so 
far advanced in negro freedom as we should have 
been if we had just let the South alone upon slavery 
and left each state free to carry out its own plans of 
melioration and gradual emancipation. 

RED JACKET'S PLAN OF FUSION. 

Why, all these anti-slavery people who t ilk about 
"fusion" to get rid of slavery, have not half the 
v.'isdom or shrewdness of the old Indian chief Red 
Jacket, whose fusion plan was just about an practical 
but more rational and not so likely to diss >lve the 
Union if carried into operation. When An i re w Jack- 
son was President of the United States and lie legis- 
latures of Virginia and Kentucky were f eely dis- 
cussing, like calm statesmen, the means of gradual 
emancipation, before the political abolition, >ts threw 
in their fire brands, it happened on one occa- on when 
lied Jacket called upon the President, that th s subject 
of slavery was introduced, and the Preside:, t asked 
Red Jacket what he thought could be done t<> get rid 
of slaves in this country. "Why," saidR d Jacket, 
"you must send all the colored women of the North 
South, and all the colored men of the Somli North, 
and in two or three generations you will get rid of 
it." (Laughter.) That was a much wiser proposi- 
tion, and more statesmanlike, than anything the abo- 
litionists bring up. How do they propose to get rid 
of it ? Why they say gu on and irritate the South un- 
til you drive them out of the Union. Well, suppose you 
could do it — suppose you drive them out of the Union 
— are there any less slaves in the country ? Not one. 
Then you could not abolish slavery in the South for 
it would be utterly beyond your reach. But they 
say, nevertheless, let us keep up at the North an in- 
cessant noise and agitation about slavery. What 
good will that do ? It only exasperates the South, 
and does not help the slaves. Then steal the negroes 
and send them off on the Underground Railroad. 
How soon will you get three millions of slaves off in 
that way ? That wiil not do. 

Well, they say, if a fugitive slave comes here to 
Massachusetts and they attempt to send him back 
under the laws and Constitution, get all the anti-sla- 
very people together, kill the marshal, kill everybody, 
and then have shootings and hangings, mobs and ri- 
ots, and a real Jacobin French reign of terror, and 
all that about one negro ! How much has that done 
to abolish slavery or make Kansas a free state ? 

WHITE SLAVERY ATTEMPTED IN MASSACHUSETTS. 

Why look at the loisdom and consistency of these 
"friends of freedom," as they call themselves, above 
all others. They went into the legislature of Massa- 
chusetts, without even a minority to oppose them, 
and passed a law declaring that if the marshal of the 



United States should undertake to return a fugitive 
slave, under a law of the Constitution which is just as 
constitutional as the Constitution itself, the whole mil- 
itary power of Massachusetts must be called out to 
shoot down the officers of the government while in 
the discharge of their duty. 

A Voice — "Good." 

Mr Hallett — Yes, good to show your heels. (Ap- 
plause.) I will tell you what you will have to meet 
that you call "good," on the side of law. The sol- 
diers of the United States, the armed citizens who 
mean to stand by the Union against abolition mobs, 
the whole military power of the United States called 
out by the President, if need be, to maintain the 
laws; aye, and the volunteer militia of Massachu- 
setts, who, if called upon by an abolition governor 
under that treasonable act, will join the side of the 
Union, 3nd help put dewn all traitors, rebels and 
rioters ! (Loud applause and faint hissing.) These 
ai'e the men who talk about resisting the laws of the 
Union, and when it comes to the point are the most 
arrant cowards in the world. They do not dare to 
look a brave man in the eye. I have seen them and 
tested them, and know all about them. 

Now, I say, they made that treasonable, nullifica- 
tion law last winter, with reference to one single 
black man ; by which act they indicated their wil- 
lingness to involve this Commonwealth in a war with 
the United States, to put her out of the Union, to 
trample upon the compacts of the Constitution, upon 
everything sacred and holy, and violate the oaths 
they had solemnly taken, — and all that for one black 
man. And then, on the very next page of the stat- 
ute book, they put another act declaring that any 
white man who had come into this State should not 
be allowed the rights of citizenship unless he had 
been born in this country. And by that act they 
meant, if in their power, to take away all political 
rights from at least forty thousand white men in the 
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, while at the same 
time they were ready to go to war with the United 
States to save, unlawfully, the supposed rights of one 
negro ! And forever hereafter, if this u//ra-American 
party rules, runaway negroes are to be received 
with open arms, and every hunted patriot, floeing 
from the tyranny of the old world, to be denied au 
asylum and sent back as a pauper ! 

And is that thing to be our Massachusetts ? Are 
such the men she is to select to guide the helm of 
state and take care of the prosperity and the honor 
of the old commonwealth ? 

What then but discord, discredit, disgrace, if not 
disunion, can come to Massachusetts or the North by 
this unavailing and incessantly irritating aggression, 
of the abolition section of the North upon the South ' 
Has all the agitation in congress by a minority exM; 
gained anything ? Could you /use eveiy voter of iae 
North into an abolitionist, and get a majority aboli- 
tion Congress and President, would you gain anything 
then but disunion ? And if you should finally bring, 
about what these know nothing fusion leaders in the 
North are using the voters of the North for, a disruption . 
of the Union, what then have you gained but two re- 
publics, one with slavery and one without ? And I tell 
you that when two such republics are formed, (if ever 



8 



God leaves us to such judicial blindness,) and the 
runaway negroes from the South overspread your 
territory, then even if the South abandon them, and 
there is no civil war, you will have to build forty 
alms houses for their reception and support them as 
paupers, or else send them out of the Commonwealth 
as a burden too grievious to be borne. And these 
very men, now the most clamorous for negro free- 
dom, will be the most earnest to have them sent back ! 
Let us see, gentleman liberators, what your philan- 
thropy amounts to. Here are a little rising of three 
millions of slaves in this country and twenty-five mil- 
lions of white people. The proportion of these ne- 
groes, if freed, for Massachusetts, is about one hun- 
dred and twenty thousand. Is she ready to open her 
arms and take tins unformed mass to her bosom, and 
sit down with them in social and political fraternity ? 
Of course they are not to keep them at the South. 
They would be worthless and unavailing there just as 
in Jamaica. If the South frees them out of compli- 
ment to the North, the North must take care of them. 
The South would not keep them because then the 
South and West would be filled up by Northern and 
foreign laborers who would flee from contact with the 
degraded free slave labor of the North, and go South, 
and thus the North would have negro labor and the 
South the benefit and strength of free white labor, 
and instead of being our market, she would be our 
competitor, and the North would run down with the 
worst and most degrading "fusion" of pauper labor. 
So that if this fusion, anti-slavery scheme could pos- 
sibly succeed either by civil war or consent of the 
South, it would just change the North into a worse 
condition as to labor than the South by giving us all 
the negro labor — the worst kind of labor fiee slave 
labor — and all its consequent pauperism. 

Now the common sense of the North, the self res- 
pect of her working men, will never follow any 
leaders, nor "fuse" into any formidable party, 
for such purposes or such results as these. 

Fusion is useless, therefore, except to produce only 
worse confusion on the slavery question. 

NON-INTErVENTION THE ONLY CONSERVATIVE DOC- 
TRINE. 

What are we going to do about it then ? Let these 
Kgitators follow the advice of Jefferson, whom they 
aflect to quote. We of the South, said Mr Jefferson 
in substance, have got the wolf by the cars, and if we 
let him go he will tear us in pieces. All we can do 
is to hold on ! So if you ask us what the States who 
have get no slaves shall do about slavery the answer 
of the democratic party is let it alone. Let these 
who have got the wolf hold on or tame and loose him 
as they choose, and dont let us be tickling his tail to 
stimulate his rage and compel his master to hold 
him tighter. (Cheers.) 

Hew easy it is to let it alone, and instead of the 
sectional embroilment talce care of the great interests 
of the state and country. What is it to Senator Sew- 
ard or any other northern man if South Carolina, as 
he pretends, has her favored class of slaveholders, any 
more than it is to South Carolina that New Yoik and 
Massachusetts have their favored classes of bankers, 
manufactures, and merchant princes ! The constitu- 



tion of the United States has no concern with it. be- 
cause all these classes or privilegss are created by 
state legislation and the general government makes 
no war on either. Just so if the people of a new terri- 
tory or a new state adapted to slave labor insist upon 
having it, where do we of the North get the right to 
legislate it out of a territory any more than they of 
the South have to legislate it in ? 

Yeur sentiments and mine are opposed to slave ry, 
but is that any reason why we should go on a crusade 
against the South to liberate the slaves, or make a 
battle ground of a Southern territory to keep it out ? 
No more than it is that we should go on a crusade 
into Russia to free the serfs in that country; and I 
confess I am rather more opposed to white slavery 
than to black slavery, though some people seem to 
think there is no sympathy to be felt tor a man un- 
less he be black. Even the fusienists do not pretend 
to a right to interfere with Russia in her system of 
domestic white servitude, and yet we have less right 
to interfere with South Carolina than we have with 
Russia; because an American has a right to expatri- 
ate himself and go to Russia and join the Poles, or 
get up a rebellion among the serfs, and take his 
chance against the government of the Czar and the 
kucut. 

But here every citizen is under a solemn vow and 
covenant, made by our fathers, that he will not in- 
terfere. There is the Constitution — what says that 
instrument? "The United States shall guarantee to 
every state in this Union, a republican form of gov- 
ernment." That included slavery where the states 
chose to have it, for the framers of the Constitution 
found slavery existing as a settled institution in most 
of the thirteen independent states, and those indepen- 
dent states said, — "We cannot make this Union un- 
less you atree, in this Constitution, not to meddle 
with this domestic institution, and to deliver up our 
fugitives from service. ' ' It would be just as if thirteen 
families should come together, in six or seven of 
which black help were employed, and in the others 
white help; and these who had black help said to 
to those who had white, — You are not to interfere 
with us in the matter of our help; and they all 
agreed to it and signed a solemn compact to that ef- 
fect; but by-and-by, after the families had been going 
on prosperously and increased largely, and intermar- 
ried, for many years, some one family gets up and in- 
sists that the families which have black help shall give 
them up, and that no new family in the neighbor- 
hood formed out of the old ones, shall be allowed to 
take the black help from the old families into the 
new ones ? What an uproar there must be at once ? 
Now, we have solemnly sworn, in that Constitution, 
that we will not meddle with this question. There- 
tore, if we act, in this state, with the direct purpose 
of interfering with the domestic servitude in any 
state, old or new, we violate the solemn e>bligations of 
our oath to support the Constitution of the Uuited 
States. Let us then be honest citizens and keep our 
oaths or go out of the Union if we cannot abide its 
laws. Can any man of common sense read this 
clause in the Constitution and not understand it ? — 

"No person held to service or labor in one state, 
under the laws thereof, [and this means Northern 



apprentices just as much as Southern slaves,] escap; 
ing into another, shall, in consequence of any law 
or regulation therein, be discharged from such ser- 
vice or labor; but shall be delivered up on claim of 
the party to whom such service or labor may be due." 

There is the Constitution in just so many plain words ; 
and yet, these know nothings and abolitionists went 
into the Legislature last winter and in ths face of 
their oaths, and the Constitution, declared that he 
should not be "delivered up." 

A Voice — "Good!" 

Mr Hallett — That same voice says "Good" again. 
Yes, "Good" to violate an oath ! "Good" to be per- 
jured ! "Good" to turn traitor to your country ! 
What good comes from perjury or treason ? No, my 
friends, rather than perjure yourselves upon this sol- 
emn pledge for the life of a Union, rather than go in 
the face of the Constitution, take the next step, you 
fusion men, you Julius Rockwell men, you denation- 
alized democrats, you know nothings, all of you who 
have gone or are going into this fusion party, and say 
you are going against the aggressions of the slave pow- 
er. Do not add hypocrisy to treason. Do not pretend 
that you can constitution.! I!;,' viol tte the Constitution, 
that you can dissolve the Union in the Union; but take 
the next step, the bold and honest treason doctrine 
of Garrison and his school — viz : that the Constitution 
does pledge you to non-intervention with slavery and 
therefore ycu go against the Union as a covenant with 
death and hell ! Neither can you stop in Kan 
the new states. If you have power there you have 
power in the old states. That is only your first step. 
The next step in that direction is already marked out 
by the recent Convention of lia'ical abolitionists held 
in Boston, who declared that the next principle for 
the fusion party to adopt was that the Constitution 
did not authorize slavery anywhere, and therefore, 
we had a right under the Constitution to abolish it in 
all the states ! And further, if that was not good 
doctrine, then they would put down the Constitution 
and dissolve the Union ! That is only your next 
step; and that is the next step you all will take, 
know nothings and all, in the onward course of fusion 
to disunion, unless we break your legs before you 
get there, as I verily believe we shall. (Laughter 
and applause.) 

WHAT DO THEY MEAN BY Tn£ SLAVE POWER. 

Now as to this "paramount issue," which the new 
school call going against the , s of the Slave 

Power. "What is it ? What is that slave power they 
have in view ? To hear their orators talk you would 
suppose that the South had been committing some 
enormous outrage upon the North. What is it ? 
Ask our merchants, mechanics and business men; 
where : dy that has been harmed or 

robbed by the South ? You cannot find anybody. 
Then vh.it is this "aggression of the Slave Power?" 
I will tell you what the South has dune which the old 
federal party never forgave and the new fusion party 
never will forgive. The democratic party of the 
North and the democratic party of the South, stand- 
ing together, have governed this country by demo- 
cratic men and democratic measures ever since 1801, 
when they elected Thomas Jefferson president. The 



federal party, the national republican party, the 
whig pai'ty, the abolition party, the free soil party, 
the know nothing party, the fusion party, every side 
issue that has been got up irom that day to this, has 
been a combination to break down the democratic 
power that has wisely ruled this country; and nation- 
al democracy, which has triumphed only by the union 
of Northern and Southern democrats, they call the 
Slave Power, in order to cry "mad dog," and run 
it down ! 

That is it, brother democrats ! ! how I wish 
you could remember that ! How I wish every demo- 
crat throughout this broad land would stand on that 
rock when these agitators and denouncers make their 
empty declamations about the aggressions of the 
South upon the North ! Why, I ask you if democrat- . 
ic influences had not controlled this country, what 
would it have been ? A little margin of thirteen At- 
lantic states, and that is all. That is what the fed- 
eral party undertook to make these states in order to 
keep the political power. The federal party had its 
strength at the North, and so has all the opposition 
to democratic administrations from Jefferson to Pierce. 
Why did the old federal party of the North assail the 
South ? Because the South had Thomas Jefferson, 
and sustained him with the aid of the democrats of 
the North ! That was why they assailed the 
South. Thomas Jefierson took the lead as the great 
head of the democratic party. John Adams was then 
the head of the federal party of the North. The 
Southern democracy and the Northern democracy 
rallied around Jefferson; and even in Massachu 
in 1804, the democracy gave the vote of this state to 
Thomas Jefferson against John Adams, and they were 
called for so doing the "-white slaves of Virginia .'" 
It was by that union of the North with the South that 
the democratic principles of this goverment were es- 
tablished. 

[There is a stand point upon which every democrat 
and every Union man should place himself to over- 
look this question of pretended aggressions of the 
slave power upon the North. Admirably, cogently, 
has this topic been presented with elaborate research, 
in an article by the Boston Post, published in that- 
paper of November 1, (and Statesman, Nov. 2,) 
headed "T7ze Democratic Party and the Alleged 
Slave Power.'"] 

UNION OF SOUTHERN AND SOUTHERN DEMOCRATS. 

And how has it bi ! 1 ? In fourteen presi- 

dential elections eleven have been carried solely by 
the union of the Northern and Southern democracy; 
and whenever the federal party, or the national re- 
publican party, or tie whig party, or the hard cider 
party have stolen into power, (three times only in all 
that period,) I one it ? By anti-slave- 

■ , and renegade 

democrats, travelling over the North and telling the 
democrats th power was enslaving them 

and picking their pockets, and they must go against 
the slave power ! And thus, once or twice in our 
history, enough deluded democrats have been carried < 
over to the ic wings and the abolitionists, 

to put down the democratic power of the North and 
South cob her. That is what these fusion 



10 



and knew nothing conspirators are after now. The 
ime "i divide and a nquer. 
'1 hus we find Mr Wm. H. Seward, of New York, be- 
gining his camp t the Constitution by 

crying out about the "oligarchy of the South." By 
that cry of "mad dog" he means the democracy of 
the South, which, when it unites with the den 
of the North, has always been invincible and 
carries this country. It in the oligarchy of the dem- 
ocratic people, North and South, which Mr Seward 
knows, if united, will be too strong for his "fusion 
oligarchy," which he wants to make him President 
that he may crush out the democracy of the Smith 
and then easily conquer the democracy of the North. 

THE TRIUMPHS 01' THE UNITED DEMOCRACY NORTn 
AM) SOUTH. 

FelloAv democrats be not deceived. Mho put 
down the tyranny of the alien and sedition laws? 
Who purchased Louisiana and Florida? Who se- 
cured the navigati< a of the mighty Mississippi ? Who 
fought ad sailors rights ? Who car- 

ried the country through the second war of Indepen- 
dence in 1812? Whc prostrate'! the paper money 
power, the United States Bank? Who gave you a, 
sound currency, an Independent Treasury, the great 
balance who md commerce ? Who put an 

end to the nullification of 1838, and finally estab- 
lished a just tariff that all now acquiesce in ? Who 
annex* Who put down the Wilmot proviso ? 

Who carried the country through the Mexican war 
with glory, and gave to the commerce and trade of 
the North the golden California ? And finally, who 

panded this country from fourteen States 
brought into the Union seventeen new States with 
all the rights of the old States, with or without sla- 
very as the people of each State chose to have it ? 
Who has d( me all this for your country ! The democrat- 
ic party, the democrats of the A'orlh and South uni- 
ted together ! (Loud applause.) That is what these 
narrow minded, sectional men of the North, these 

and know nothings, stigmatize as "the Slave 
Power." 

Nov I will sit down with any one of the free soilers 
or know nothings, or fusion men, and, beginning at 
1801, 1 will trace every measure of liberal and ei 
statesmanship, every great act of this government for 
the good of the whole Union, everything that has ex- 
panded its territory, everything that has enlarged and 
democratized its influence, everything that has eleva- 
ted its glory abroad, everything that has insured its 
tranquility at homo, an 1 one by one I will show you 
that they have beei shed by the united votes of 

the Northern and Southern democracy. Whenever a 
died, whenever 
ter for a bank, whenever thi 
treasury was checked, whenever a high tar- 
ill has been imp sed, it lias been owing to a 

d of Northern democrats from those of the 

. and allowing the federal whig party to come 
in and take the power. That is the way it has keen 
done : and taking all the history of the pa 
looking to the future, you may re t assured, that 

iver these men, with their insidious sneers 

g about a separation and 



alienation between the Northern and Southern de- 
mocracy, thoy will open the way to an entire change 
i ,■ dissolution of democratic government, and strike 
a fatal blow at the best interests of this country, — at 
ly party in whose hands those interests have 
can remain safe. 
Tell me, after seventy years of such statesmanship; 
tell me that I. as a democrat, am to turn my back 
upon those true men of the South and fraternize with 
— God knows who ! Yes! who are these leaders of 
know nothings, abolitionists, fusionists and all the 
paltry fsmsofthe day that make Massachusetts a po- 
litical Bedlam? Wc never saw r these men (except a 
few wc always <new to be soft ami uncertain) in the 
democratic ranks, fighting for us in any of these 
great battles of principles When they pretended to 
stand on a democratic platform we always found 
them upon some plank that had a side issu to it, and 
standing so narrow on that as only to get on the 
edge of it ! (Applause.) Let us not take counsel of 
these narrow minded men. Let us look till over the 
country and then we shall see where our largest and 
truest interests lie. Above all things let the Northern 
and Southern democracy stand together in this com- 
ing crisis of the Union, as they have sti od together, 
and triumphed together, for half a century of glory ! 

THE " NEBRASKA INIQUITY" THE "KANSAS OUT- 
RAGE." 

Well, some of you tell me that may do as to past 
measures, but how can we of the North submit to this 
horrible outrage of the South in the "Nebraska Ini- 
quity" and the Kansas Bill ? The fusionists, driven 
from every other position stand on this a:one. Their 
whole doctrine (if Senator Sumner is its expounder) 
is that there shall be no slavery in any territory or 
new State. This is only the old Wilmot Proviso. 
Excluding that Proviso, putting it down, obliterating 
the black line, as the whole democracy agreed to do, 
in the compromises of 1850, and the glorious election 
of General Pierce in 1852, is the whole princijile of 
the Nebraska and Kansas Bill. That is the "ini- 
quity," the "terrible outrage," the "aggression of 
the slave power," against which you are told all 
friends of freedom must "fuse," for the purpose of 
preventing Kansas from becoming a slave state ! 

Now if the men who started this hunt had only fol- 
lowed the principle of the Nebraska Bill, viz : left it 
to the people, Kansas would -inevitably have been a 
free state. I do not know what she will be now. 
These fusion know nothing men have gone there with 
their propagandism of abolui ! the South 

has met them with the propagandism of slavery. If 
Northern abolitionists and Southern slave! 
wish to make that territory a battle ground, let them 
fight it out, at the ballot box, I hope, but even if at 
the point of the bowie knife, what is the government 
of these United States, what are the other States of 
the Union going to do about it, in Congress or out of 
it? Ave they going to take sides and brinj 
civil and a servile war between North and South ? 

Thoy say the President should have sent an army 

there. What power lias he there : If he had moved 

a single step, with a single company of dragoons, the 

v would have bo, n in an uproar, and the cry 






11 



would have resounded on every hand, "Military 
Usurper!" "Tyrant!" "Violator of the Constitu- 
tion!" He has no such power. What would have 
been the effect had he attempted such a power ? If 
it be a fict that they are divided between emigrants 
from the North, and emigrants or interlopers from 
the South in Kansas, how are you going to settle it 
by the whole Union interfering ? If the President 
send one body of troops there to aid the Northern 
portion, Missouri will send another body to help the 
Southern portion. If you rally at the North to sus- 
tain the troops the President has sent, they will vol- 
unteer at the South on the other side ; and when you 
have got an army there of fifty thousand men, on 
either side, then they may fight, if there is courage 
in these fusion men at the North to go South and 
fight. "Courage!" no, folly . The North does not 
lack courage ; it has got courage enough ; but I do 
not think it has got fools enough to go to Kansas to 
fight on such a question as this. (Applause.) 

What have you got to do then ? Why, let it alone ! 
It will take care of itself. Leave the question of sla- 
very or no slavery in Kansas just where our fathers 
left that question, to God and the people ! (Ap- 
plause.) 

THE PRINCIPLE OF THE KANSAS BILL. POPULAR 
RIGHTS. 

Now, what is the principle of that Kansas Bill ? 
Why have the democratic party come to that doctrine ? 
Will you consider the argument a moment ? No, no, 
clamor the fusionists and know nothings, you have 
violated a solemn compact ! Well, is it worth while 
for these men to talk about the violation of a compact 
in a mere legislative enactment, when they trample 
upon the solemn compacts of the Constitution ? They 
are not the men to read us lessons on that head. But 
here comes the argument, the reason why democrats 
abide by the Kansas Bill, and will make that an is- 
sue on which they will carry the next President. 
Ever since the Missouri Compromise of 1820, Con- 
gress has been kept in turmoil and agitation on this 
subject of slavery. It got to be so great a nuisance 
in bi-eeding demagogues that the people could not 
have any wholesome legislation. Private and pub- 
lic interests were alike thrown aside, because this an- 
gry subject of slavery was being brought up at all 
times. Now, so long as congress undertook to exer- 
cise the power to prohibit or authorize slavery in the 
territories, that sore of agitation was kept open, and 
the men who got to congress upon this demagog- 
ism kept irritating and irritating it until it would 
have destroyed the Union, had not some stop to the 
plague been found. What did the statesmen of the 
country do ? They said, "Let us look at this matter. 
It belonges to the States and the people in the States 
must take care of it. The same principle is equally 
sound when applied to the people of a territory. In- 
stead of saying whether slavery shall or shall not ex- 
ist in the territories, we will organize the territories 
and let the people there settle it for themselves. 
They will know best what is for their interest." 

That is the principle of the Kansas Bill. There is 
not a man here, probably, who has ever read the 



Kansas Bill. The free soil lecturers do not read it to 
the people. It is one of the most democratic things 
in the world. It provides that every actual resi- 
dent shall be a voter at the first election, and 
then the Legislature shall fix the qualifications. 
That those only shall be members of the first 
Legislature who are "duly declared by the Governor 
to have the highest number of legal votes." So that 
the Kansas Legislature, bad as it may be, was certi- 
fied by Governor Reeder to have received the highest 
number of legal votes. Then when it came to act and 
pass laws, it had the same rights to make laws under 
the Constitution as the Legislature of Mi ssachusetts 
had, and it can hardly have passed more lawless acts 
than that Legislature did ! The powers of legislation 
established by the Kansas and Nebraska acts are in 
these words : — 

"The Legislative power shall extend to all rightful 
subjects of legislation consistent with the Constitution 
of the United States and this Act. — It being the true 
intent and meaning of this Act not to legislate slave- 
ry into any territory or state nor to exclude it there- 
from, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to 
form and regulate their domestic institutions in their 
own way, subject only to the Constitution of the Uni- 
ted States. ' ' 

Is not that sound democratic doctrine ? Is any- 
body opposed to that ? "But there is a set of bor- 
der ruffians,' " they say, "who invade that territory 
from the other side of the river, and control the elec- 
tions." That is all wrong and will react against the 
wrong- doers; but if there is wrong done we cannot 
cure it by civil war. The voters, by the Kansas Act, 
at the first election, were to be "actual residents." 
What is "i n actual resident" in Kansas. Are we to 
settle it in other States, or must they settle it there 
for themselves ? A man goes into Kansas and swears 
today, "I am an actual resident." They cannot dis- 
pute him, for it rests in his own mind and purpose, 
and they take his vote ; and in that way all these men 
that go there from Missouri, if not residents, must 
have taken false oaths, and perjured themselves. 
But, you say, behind that is the power of the govern- 
ment and it ought to interfere. That is a mistake. 
We should thank God that the President of the United 
States has no such power. He has power to execute 
the laws of the United States, whenever they are re- 
sisted, but he has no right to pass judgment on the 
acts of a legislative body acting under an organic law. 

Governor Reeder himself organized the Legislature 
of Kansas under the organic law of the Territory, 
and when they got together they had the power of 
other Legislatures, and they pres3ribed the qualifi- 
cations of voters under the Constitution. Can the 
President interfere ? Shall not the Kansas Legisla- 
ture have that right ? We have it here in Massachu- 
setts ; do you mean to give it up to somebody else ? 
and if not will you take it away from them ? 

But the Legislature of Kansas, you say, have 
abused their powers. Very likely. That is just 
what the know nothings have done here in Massachu- 
setts most abominably, but are we going to have 
Kansas interfere to regulate those abuses ? No ! 
Then what business have you to go to Kansas to leg j 



12 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

next Presi- 

rritories t!ie 

Bacefully in 

ent all over 

this 

011 897 809 2 ^wStatewill 

,j (jci uioruuiiiijf ucsiit it as a fixed 



islate for them or regulate them, if they have abused tie th 

their powers? denti 

same 

WHO SHALL MAKE TUE LOCAL LAWS OF A TERRITORY, it „. 

And this brings us to the simple question, shall with 

iss makeloc*l laws for a Territory, or shall the ousU 

people of the Territory make their own local laws? haves 

Democrats y no ! the people of dement in their domestic institutions. Should it at 
the Te . i ightofself-gov- first be forced upon a Territory by "border ruffians" 
ernment, and the new States shall not have the same or interlopers, the reaction of the will i ■ rma- 
righl come into the Union that Massachu- nent settlers will b( ient in the end in 
setts has! There wetake issne upon this plain, open, excluding it. Thus if the real and permanent peo- 
practicable, Jeffersonian doctrine, that the people of pie of Kansas shall resolve upon having a free State, 
every political community shall have the right "to including blacks, Kansas will be free, without slaves. 
form and] ir domestic institutions in their within her territory. But if her people, de- 
own way, s titutionofthe TJni- liberately looking t their own affa -that 
ted Stales/' ' That is the Kansas Bill; and now I she shall be a free State with slaves in it, (tor that is 
may ask, arc you in fevor of freedom or are you in the only difference between free and slave States in 
favor of si: new in Kansas ? If you this Union,) I do not know what right we of the 
say thai they arc n t to be trusted, besause you fear North have to interfere. All we caa aer is, 
they will carry I other States into Kansas, we think you have the wo got to 
then you deny self government of the people, and go hold the wolf by the cars ami wo will not tickle his 
for white slavery in Kansas, under the self-conceited tail to enrage him or to rend the Union. (Ap- 
pretence that you can govern for them better than plause ) 
they can govern for themselves ! 



TUE CONSCIENCE ISSUE APPLIED TO KANSAS. 

But you insist that your conscience will not allow 
you to sit still and see the extension of slavery going 
on in this country. Well, Ave are obliged to sec a great 
many thing! everywhere that we don't like, 

but can't help, and the more we meddle the worse we 
make it. It lias been so with anti-slavery for twen- 
ty-five years of political turmoil. But just reflect 
that as much as we may desire that Kansas should be 
a free black and white State there will not be the in- 
crease of a single slave move in this Union should she 
become only a free white State. The question is not 
whether freemen, Mack or white, shall be made slaves, 
but whether some portions more or 1 s of the slaves 
living on (iio side of a river or state line shall live on 
the other side and still be slaves, or continue to be 
where they now are? Is this so great a mat- 
ter, then, of such awful "paramount" interest as a 
one idea that the North is bound to go on a crusade 
against the South under these abolition and know 
nothing missii naries, and drive slavery out of Kan- 
sas or drive the South out of the Union ? 

"What avails it now to talk of repealing the Ne- 
braska Bill ? There it is a law of this Union, and the 

an issue because it is the only conservative doctrine 
concerning slavery as an incident in our State gov- 
ernments, upon which the whole country, South and 
North, can repose in peace. Hereafter, when we set- 



SLAVE REPRESENTATION. 

As to the argument touching slave representation, 
so much the worse for If she, like the 

South, has slave labor, it excludes just so much free 
labor, and so weakens her political power, as it does 
in all the slaveholdin^ States; for the slaves who ex- 
clude free laborers from the population, count in the 
ratio of representation (not in voling as fools and 
knaves construe the Constitution on that point) 
but three in five ; whereas the laborers of the 
North, whether voters or non-voters, count like men 
five in five. Strange inconsistency that t lie abolition- 
ists should complain that a negro counts too much 
when he counts only three in five to the whites ! 

Therefore, my friends, let us repose in confidence 
upon this sound democratic principle of self govern- 
ment, State rights, and fidelity to the Constitution. 
When we bring the anti-slavery lecturers and the fu- 
sion demagogues, and the know nothings down to this 
plain, practical, common sense issue, they have no 
resource butlnvective against the "slave power" and 
the "slave oligarchy;"' and there let them rail; and 
so God help us and incline our hearts to love the 
Union, and wc of the Northern and Southern nation- 
locracy with the Union-loving all par- 

ties acting with us, . ndvotethem 

down in the next Presidential election, as we have 
done for fifty years, and thus continue to preserve 
the Union and the rights of the States in spite of foes 
without and traitors within ! (Cheers.) 



UBBABYOFCON^SS 



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